© Reuters. Cennet Sucu is rescued from the rubble of the collapsed hospital, following an earthquake in Iskenderun, Turkey, February 6, 2023. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
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By Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever
ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in 10 provinces devastated by two earthquakes that killed more than 5,200 people and left a trail of destruction across a wide area of southern Turkey and the neighboring Syria.
One day after the earthquake struck, rescuers working in difficult conditions struggled to pull people out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.
As the scale of the disaster became increasingly apparent, the death toll seemed likely to rise sharply. A United Nations official said thousands of children were feared dead.
And residents of several damaged Turkish cities expressed anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response by authorities to the deadliest earthquake to hit Turkey since 1999.
“There is not a single person here. We are under the snow, homeless, with nothing,” said Murat Alinak, whose house in Malatya collapsed and whose relatives are missing. “What should I do, where can I go?”
Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, followed hours later by another almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings, including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks.
Tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless in cities across Turkey and northern Syria.
Winter weather has hampered rescue and relief efforts and made the plight of the homeless even more miserable. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.
Aid officials expressed particular concern about the situation in Syria, which is already suffering from a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war.
Erdogan declared the 10 affected Turkish provinces a disaster area on Tuesday and imposed a three-month state of emergency. This will allow the government to bypass parliament when enacting new laws and limiting or suspending rights and freedoms.
The government will open hotels in the tourist hub of Antalya to temporarily house people affected by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces national elections in three months.
The death toll in Turkey rose to 3,549 people, Erdogan said. In Syria, the death toll was at least 1,712, according to the government and a rescue service in the insurgent-controlled northwest of the country.
“EVERY MINUTE, EVERY HOUR”
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area covering about 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east, and 300 km from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south.
Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, about 250 km (155 miles) from the epicenter.
“Now it’s a race against time,” World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Every minute, every hour that goes by, the chances of finding survivors alive are diminishing.”
Throughout the region, rescuers worked around the clock as people waited anguished beside piles of rubble, clinging to the hope of finding friends, family and neighbors alive.
In Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, which borders Syria, rescue teams were few and the residents themselves were picking through the rubble. People asked for helmets, hammers, iron bars, and ropes.
A 54-year-old woman named Gulumser was pulled alive from an eight-story building 32 hours after the quake.
Another woman then yelled at rescuers: “My father was right behind that room she was in. Please save him.”
The workers explained that they could not reach the room from the front and that they first needed an excavator to remove the wall.
Turkish authorities say more than 12,000 search and rescue personnel are working in the affected areas, along with 9,000 soldiers. Some 70 countries and dispatch of personnel, equipment and aid.
But the magnitude of the disaster is overwhelming.
“The area is huge. I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Johannes Gust, of Germany’s fire and rescue service, as he loaded equipment onto a truck at Turkey’s Adana airport.
Turkey’s Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) said 5,775 buildings were destroyed by the quake and 20,426 people were injured.
In Geneva, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said: “The earthquakes… may have killed thousands of children.”
‘TERRIFY SCENE’
Syrian refugees in northwestern Syria and in Turkey were among the most vulnerable affected people, Elder said.
In the Syrian city of Hama, Abdallah al-Dahan said that the funerals of several families would take place on Tuesday.
“It’s a terrifying scene in every way,” Dahan said, reached by phone. “In all my life I have not seen anything like this, despite everything that has happened to us.”
Mosques opened their doors to families whose homes were damaged.
Syrian state news agency SANA said at least 812 people were killed and 1,449 wounded in the government-controlled provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Tartous.
At least 900 people were killed in opposition-held northwestern Syria and 2,300 injured and the death toll is expected to “increase dramatically”, the White Helmets rescue team said.
“Our teams are making a lot of efforts, but they cannot respond to the catastrophe and the large number of collapsed buildings,” said the head of the group, Raed al-Saleh.
Time was running out to save hundreds of families trapped under the rubble of the buildings and urgent help from international groups was needed, he said.
A UN humanitarian official in Syria said fuel shortages and inclement weather were creating obstacles.
“The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we used to use for humanitarian work are damaged,” UN Resident Coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters from Damascus.
‘WHERE IS THE STATE?’
In the Turkish port of Iskenderun, hundreds of shipping containers were burning, shutting down operations and forcing ocean liners to divert ships to other ports. The maritime authority said the fire was the result of earthquake damage.
In Malatya, Turkey, where snow covered the ground, people expressed frustration at what they said was a lack of help as they searched for the missing.
Without specialized equipment or even gloves, they tried to make their way through the rubble of houses collapsed by the force of the earthquake.
“My in-laws’ grandchildren are there. We have been here for two days. We are devastated,” Sabiha Alinak said.
“Where is the state? We are begging them. Let’s do it, we can rescue them. We can do it with our means.”